holy ordinary {simplicity}

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Thou shalt sprinkle me with hyssop

Recently on my Instagram Feed a friend asked what is #holyordinary and how does it relate to our Divine Liturgy.

Holy Ordinary is life – simple, bare, straightforward – warts and all – yet blessed. Holy Ordinary is eukharistia – a life of Thanksgiving, and contentment. Holy Ordinary is looking for God in the present moment of the ordinary-ness of daily life.

In reference to our Liturgy – let’s focus on our Litanies… fervent supplication – our Litanies orient us toward every day life enveloped in that which is needful – Thy Will be done – in the midst of the sublime foretaste of Heaven which is the Liturgy and the Eucharist. It is simple, true, beautiful and all the while majestic, Holy and sublime.

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all who love Nickolaus the Holy

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All who love Nickolas the Holy • the Wonderworker and Bishop of Myra • one of the most well known Saints in the world • ⠀
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He is a most beloved Saint • a hero of social justice • he walked the walk and gave of his own resources • helping those in need • we think often of the three sacks gold coins secretly thrown into the home a man who in his poverty and destitution was going to sell his three daughters into slavery. • Saint Nickolas generosity saves these three women ⠀
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• kids the world over put their shoes out last night • hoping that their shoes too will be filled with chocolate gold coins or other goodies. • ⠀
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• He is a patron Saint of sailors • on land and ocean. In Greece there are some of the most beautiful Orthodox churches built right on the shores of the sea dedicated to Saint Nickolas. ⠀
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Humble of heart • warrior of Christ and faith • generous of spirit • he is known in all corners of the world • ⠀
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• May Saint Nickolas bless all of us • May our hearts overflow with the gold coins of Love • Hope • Faith • Joy • Thanksgiving • Forbearance • Kindness • Gentleness • Self Control • ⠀
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• May he kindle the flame of Gods love in your heart • and for those who know him only as Santa Claus • May his prayers awaken your heart to Christ’s Love in this time of awaiting his sweet Nativity and ignite the flame of Faith • and the knowledge that God is jealous for you and awaiting your whole heart. ⠀
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• blessed Feast of Saint Nickolas • ⠀

for the peace from above

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He is our bread – because from the very beginning all our hunger was a hunger for Him and all our bread was but a symbol of Him , a symbol that had to become reality.
Father Akexabder Schmemman :: For the Life of the World

Ὑπὲρ τῆς ἄνωθεν εἰρήνης καὶ τῆς σωτηρίας τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν τοῦ Κυρίου δεηθῶμεν.

For the peace from above and for the salvation of our souls, let us pray to the Lord.

Great Litany :: Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom

For the peace from above… we pray this in every Divine Liturgy… and this peace is not an earthly peace but rather is a peace even in the midst of chaos… Peace leading souls to still waters :: on the path of righteousness for His names sake (Psalm 23) . Soul redeeming restorative peace… a peace which surpasses all understanding :: peace of goodness and mercy unto salvation.

Heavenly peace :: and tranquility of soul.

εἰρήνης :: Peace

This is harmony.

The Litanies of the Liturgy of Life :: these are a compass to Salvation – that we will dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of our lives.

Skopelos Greece

keeping watch

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For us in the world living ordinary lives….. we too must discover stillness and watchfulness in the cave of the heart and learn to attend to what is heard in silence while living ordinary lives in the world as she did. Deep interior prayer is not something only for the monastics or for a hermit far off in the desert.

Stephen Muse

Treasure in Earthen Vessels

thankfulness to God

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The Thanksgiving of the receiver incites the Giver to give gifts greater than the first. He that returns no thanks in small matters is a dissembler and dishonest in greater ones also. If a man is ill and he recognizes his ailment, his healing will be easy. If he confesses his pain, he draws nigh its cure. There are many pangs for the unyielding heart, and the patient who resists his physician amplifies his torment. There is no unpardonable sin, save the unrepented one. Nor does any gift remain without addition, save that whites received without thanksgiving.

The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian

Homily Two : On Thankfulness to God, In Which There Are Also Essential Elementary Lessons

little blessings

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We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass- grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence… We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Mother Teresa

Do you find little blessings throughout your day?

They come in all manner of ways and need not even be spectacular.

The Cross above was propped up on a tree in the middle of the woods on our morning walk to feed the local horses.

It’s been carried home to hang up on our backyard shed!

A blessing, indeed.

Through the Cross joy has come into all the world.

 

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thanksgiving is

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“I am grateful for what I am and have. My thanksgiving is perpetual.” – Henry David Thoreau

Father Alexander Schmemann of blessed memory says that thanksgiving and joy are the essential elements of a life in Christ and Saint John of Kronstadt says that the soul involuntarily longs to praise God.  This blessed gift is already present within each us but requires tending and nurture.

To give thanksgiving is to bless and also to love, for when we give thanks we return and offer back to God what He has bestowed to us.

Gratitude is fertilizer to the soil of prayer germinating seeds of hope, patience in tribulation, and a tissue blessing tears.

Thanksgiving is Eukharistia and seeks not to be right but rather righteousness and it is yielding and forgiving; grounded in reality.

Thanksgiving is healing and the candlelight of vigil.  It rejoices with those who rejoice and mourns with those who mourn (Romans 12:35).  It seeks no glory but glorifies.

Offering thanks gives much peace to the present moment, and cultivates wonder at the fragrant act of a costly oil of spikenard, poured upon and anointing the feet of Jesus.

wholesale Grace

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“The trumpet shall sound” – in the Costco.
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Someone came in with a trumpet, and from where you are standing in the back of the warehouse a beautiful majestic sweet music, wafts through the air and emanates from somewhere in the front of store.  Notes made even fuller as they echo off the metal walls.  A trumpet plays “amazing grace”.  It permeates the air.

You are drawn to it and follow the notes “amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see” and as you move toward the front of the store the melody ends and people are clapping.  But you never see who is the one with the trumpet.

A certain peace fills the air of the warehouse and everyone returns to shopping.  The Pentecostal life : the sweet melody of that trumpet is something like the grace which pursues each of us, every day.  Most abundantly we find this grace within the walls of the Orthodox Church.  The grace of thanksgiving, the Liturgy, and especially in partaking of the Eucharist, when we receive Christ Himself.

But like a hen gathering her chicks, God continually pursues all of His children – perhaps even breaking through the noise and bustle of the everyday ordinary.  May the ears of the world hear.

“They will be my people, and I will be their God.” (Jeremiah 32:38)